MoviePass responded late this evening to a number of reports calling into question the company’s privacy policy after CEO Mitch Lowe publicly claimed the theater subscription service tracks its users’ locations. A spokesperson for the company clarified that MoviePass has no intentions to sell this data, and the company at the moment is only “exploring” utilizing location-based marketing as a way to “enhance the overall experience by creating more opportunities” for subscribers to “enjoy all the various elements of a good movie night.”

Use of location-based data is mentioned only once in MoviePass’ privacy policy, which says a user’s location is checked only to verify whether they are in fact nearby the specified theater they intend to purchase a movie ticket from.

By this morning, MoviePass’s location data gathering was headline news as the company hurried to put out the outrage fires that had sprung up. TechCrunch reported that

MoviePass has issued an update for its iOS app that removes “unused app location capability,” apparently a response to widespread concern after the company’s CEO said: “We watch how you drive from home to the movies. We watch where you go afterwards.”

It’s nice to see the public wake up and roar over privacy-invasive apps that do not even clearly disclose the scope of their privacy invasion. Keep it up, public. Keep it up.

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